A Letter of Credit Part 71

"That may be. She will have writing to do, however, of some kind. You write themes in school, don't you?"

"But then, what are the envelopes for, papa? We don't put our compositions in envelopes."

"Never mind, my dear; the envelopes belong to the paper. Rotha can keep them till she finds a use for them."

"They won't match other paper, papa," said Antoinette. But Rotha collected her wits and made her acknowledgments, as well as she could.

"Has Nettie shewn you her Christmas things?"

"No, sir."

"Well, it will please you to see them. You are welcome, my dear."

Rotha carried her package of paper up stairs, wondering what experiences would till out the afternoon. Her aunt and cousin seemed by no means to be in a genial mood. They all went up to the dressing room and sat down there in silence; all, that is, except Mr. Busby. Rotha's thoughts went with a spring to her bag and her books at Mrs. Mowbray's. Two o'clock, said the clock over the chimney piece. In three hours more she might go home.

Mrs. Busby took some work; she always had a basket of mending to do.

Apologies did not seem to have wrought any mollification of her temper.

Antoinette went down to the parlour to practise, and the sweet notes of the piano were presently heard rumbling up and down. Rotha sat and looked at her aunt's fingers.

"Do you know anything about mending your clothes, Rotha?" Mrs. Busby at last broke the silence.

"Not much, ma'am."

"Suppose I give you a lesson. See here--here is a thin place on the shoulder of one of Mr. Busby's s.h.i.+rts; there must go a patch on there.

Now I will give you a patch--"

She sought out a piece of linen, cut a square from it with great attention to the evenness of the cutting, and gave it to Rotha.

"It must go from here to here--see?" she said, shewing the place; "and you must lay it just even with the threads; it must be exactly even; you must baste it just as you want it; and then fell it down very neatly."

Rotha thought, as she did not wear linen s.h.i.+rts, that this particular piece of mending was rather for her aunt's account than for her own. Lay it by the threads! a good afternoon's work.

"I have no thimble,--" was all she said.

Mrs. Busby sought her out an old thimble of her own, too big for Rotha, and it kept slipping off.

The rest of the history of that afternoon is the history of a patch. How easy it is, to an unskilled hand, to put on a linen patch by a thread, let anyone who doubts convince herself by trying. Rotha basted it on, and took it off, basted it on again and took it off again; it would not lie smooth, or it would not lie straight; and when she thought it would do, and shewed it to her aunt, Mrs. Busby would point out that what straightness there was belonged only to one side, or that there was a pucker somewhere. Rotha sighed and began again. She did not like the job.

Neither had she any pleasure in doing it for her aunt. Her impatience was as difficult to straighten out as the patch itself, but Rotha thought it was only the patch. Finally, and it was not long first, either, she began to grow angry. Was her aunt trying her, she questioned, to see if she would not forget herself and be ill-mannerly again? And then Rotha saw that the cross was presented to her anew, under another form. Patience, and faithful service, involving again the giving up of her own will. And here she was, getting angry already. Rotha dropped her work and hid her face in her hands, to send up one silent prayer for help.

"You won't get your patch done that way," said Mrs. Busby's cold voice.

Rotha took her hands down and said nothing, resolved that here too she would do what it was right to do. She gave herself to the work with patient determination, and arranged the patch so that even Mrs. Busby said it was well enough. Then she received a needle and fine thread and was instructed how to sew the piece on with very small st.i.tches. But now the difficulty was over. Rotha had good eyes and st.i.tched away with a good will; and so had the work done, just before the light failed too much for her to see any longer. She folded up the s.h.i.+rt, with a gleeful feeling that now the afternoon was over. Antoinette came up from her practising, or whatever else she had been doing, just as Rotha rose.

"Aunt Serena," said the girl, and she said it pleasantly, "my stockings some of them want mending, and I have no darning cotton. If you would give me a skein of darning cotton, I could keep them in order."

"Do you know how?"

"Yes, ma'am, I know how to do that. Mother taught me. I can darn stockings."

Mrs. Busby rummaged in her basket and handed to Rotha a ball of cotton yarn.

"This is too coa.r.s.e, aunt Serena," Rotha said after examining it.

"Too coa.r.s.e for what?"

"To mend my stockings with."

"It is not too coa.r.s.e to mend mine."

"But it would not go through the st.i.tches of mine," said Rotha looking up. "It would tear every time."

"How in the world did you come to have such ridiculous stockings? Such stockings are expensive. I do not indulge myself with them; and I might, better than your mother."

"Poor people always think they must have things fine, I suppose," said Antoinette. "I wonder what sort of shoes she has, to go with the stockings?"

The blood flushed to Rotha's face; and irritation p.r.i.c.ked her to retort sharply; yet she did not wish to speak Mr. Digby's name again. She hesitated.

"Whose nonsense was that?" asked Mrs. Busby; "yours, or your mother's? I never heard anything equal to it in my life. I dare say they are Balbriggans. I should not be at all surprised!"

"I do not know what they are," said Rotha, striving to hold in her wrath, "but they are not my mother's nonsense, nor mine."

"Whose then?" said Mrs. Busby sharply.

Rotha hesitated.

"Mrs. Mowbray's!" cried Antoinette. "It is Mrs. Mowbray again! Mamma, I should think you would feel yourself insulted. Mrs. Mowbray is ridiculous! As if you could not get proper stockings for Rotha, but she must put her hand in."

"I think it is very indelicate of Mrs. Mowbray; and Rotha is welcome to tell her I say so," Mrs. Busby uttered with some discomposure. Rotha's discomposure on the other hand cooled, and a sense of amus.e.m.e.nt got up.

It is funny, to see people running hard after the wrong quarry; when they have no business to be running at all. However, she must speak now.

"It is not Mrs. Mowbray's nonsense either," she said. "Mr. Southwode got them for me."

"Mr. Southwode!"--Mrs. Busby spoke out those two words, and the rest of her mind she kept to herself.

"Mamma," said Antoinette, "Mr. Southwode is as great a goose as other folks. But then, gentlemen don't know things--how should they?"

"You are a goose yourself, Antoinette," said her mother.

"Have you no cotton a little finer? I mean a good deal finer?" said Rotha, going back to the business question.

"There are no stockings in my house to need it."

"Then what shall I do? There are two or three little holes in the toes."

"I will tell you. I will get you some stockings fit for you; and you may bring those to me. I will take care of them till you want them, which will not be for a long time."

Rotha turned cold with dismay. This was usurpation and oppression at once; against both which it was in her nature to rebel furiously. She was fond of the stockings, as of everything which Mr. Southwode had got for her; moreover they suited her, and she liked the delicate comfort of them. And though nothing less than suspicious, Rotha had a sudden feeling that the time for her to see her stockings again would never come; they would be put to other use, and Mrs. Busby would think it was a fair exchange. _She_ would wear the coa.r.s.e and Antoinette would have the fine.

There was a terrible tempest in Rotha's soul, which nevertheless she did not suffer to burst out. She would appeal to Mrs. Mowbray. She took leave somewhat curtly, carrying her two quires of paper with her, but leaving the coa.r.s.e darning cotton which she did not intend to use.